Happy 2nd Birthday Stephen!

 
 
 
 

My sweet boy here are all the things I love about you:
1. That you were born on November 30th
2. That you never cried when I dropped you off at daycare (10weeks-18 months)
3. That you made me art for every occasion at daycare
4. That you resemble me over Daddy
5. That you tell me you love me at least once a day
6. That you’re not a morning person
7. That you love for us to reread books over and over
8. That you love to read to yourself
9. That you hate to get your diaper changed
10. But when it’s time for bed you insist on a diaper change to delay time
11. That you love all my quirky made up songs to the tune of “Frairizaka”
12. That you love your Thomas the train tooth paste
13. That you finally let me help you brush your teeth after I let you brush for at least 30 seconds on your own
14. That you love pizza
15. That you love your little brother Jonathan
16. That one time I caught you feeding Jonathan a bottle
17. That if you see Jonathan’s pacifier you instantly try to put it in his mouth
18. That you are scared of the moon
19. That you “say Momma, go in living room?” in the morning when you’re ready to get out of bed
20. That you have slept until 8 am recently
21. That you walk around the house sometimes with your hands behind your back like you’re in deep thought
22. That you can spell your name
23. That you can recognize your alphabet letters
24. That you like to say “Good Job, Stephen, Good Job”
25. That you give yourself away when you scoot up on the coffee table by saying “Get Down!”
26. That you love to color “paper”
27. That you like to turn on the dishwasher
28. That you don’t try to open the door when you can reach the knob
29. That you love to watch football and Noggin (Nick Jr.)
30. That you like helping unload the dishwasher
31. That you like to help vacuum
32. That you try on all of Daddies shoes all the time (especially his boots)
33. That you can recognize cars that look like Mommy, Daddy, Jamie and Noni’s cars
34. That you love your cousin’s Chance, Callie, Hunter and Titus
35. That you figured out an upside down M is a W during a diaper change
36. That you can count to 20 but you always forget to say eleven
37. That when you are about to color you always ask for pink first
38. That you love your “bath-bath” time
39. That you like to play "peek-a-goo" with your little brother
40. That you love to eat your fruits and vegetables
41. That you sympathize with other children when they are upset
42. That you love Dora and Diego
43. That you enjoy going outside to ride your bike
44. That you still take a 2 hour nap
45. That you love to put stickers on paper (with my help)
46. That icecream is your favorite treat
47. That you love to read your toddler bible with Daddy and Mommy
48. That you love to "look at pictures" on the computer
49. That you call Jamie Aunt Momma (a few times)
50. That this morning at 11:06 AM you turned 2 years old

Happy Thanksgiving

Today we are leaving The Woodlands and making our way to Seguin to my Aunt Betty's house for Thanksgiving "YUMMY" lunch. I am not much of a turkey eater. Isn't that horrible? Turkey is full of lean protein. Did you know that a 4-oz. serving of white meat has over 60% of the US daily allotment of protein? And I don't like it. It's no wonder I can't get this baby weight off. My Mom is a super cook. She is making the stuffing and a few of my favorite Thanksgiving sides. My Dad and Uncle Scott are frying the turkeys for this annual event in our family.

Stephen has been in Gonzales since Tuesday so Daniel, Jonathan and I could go to our friend's Jonah and Rachel's wedding. I hear Stephen is having fun playing with my nephew Chance, riding his strider bike and helping feed the cows. I plan on taking pictures today so be expecting them next week. We are staying in Gonzales until Sunday to spend sometime with both sides of my family. We are going to celebrate Stephen's birthday on Friday with a cake and a few gifts. Then Mom and I are taking the boys to Illusions to get their picture taken with Santa. I will tell you Stephen has NO CLUE about Santa. I am not sure how this picture session is going to work.

Saturday we are going to Luling to my Nana's house to celebrate her marriage to her new husband Willie Joe. They were married back in mid July and have decided to invite some family and friends over to celebrate their marriage. This will be the first time Daniel, the boys and I have been to Luling altogether since probably late Spring since I didn't really travel much the last 4 months of my pregnancy.

Today is an extra special day of thanks for Daniel and I. We have two adorably handsome boys that we love more and more each day. Even though Jonathan is so little he has such a sweet personality. His Daddy can easily make him belly laugh. It is hilarious to watch. Stephen is doing great in the new phase of age 2. Even though the word "mine" is gettng used more and more on a daily basis it so fun to see him grow up. HE LOVES HIS LITTLE BROTHER. I have some great videos of the sweetest things he has done this past week for his brother, Jonathan (his words Jon-a-nin). I also feel blessed to stay home with the boys. I am so thankful for my husband, Daniel. God has blessed Daniel at work with THHA. It has been a year a month since his new position as Project Manager over Chevron Deep Water. He is In-House Support for Chevron through THHA. With this type of job Daniel is on-call 24 hours a day. He gets calls from all across the world. He has to be available to answer questions for support at any time of the day. He has shelves of binders that he has studied over the last 4 years to help learn about each tool. It's not unusual for him to get a call at midnight from a rig engineer to ask him a question. Also, he gets to travel to Lafayette Louisiana once a month for a day or sometimes a week. He has poored so much into learning different aspects of all kinds of tools used to drill deep water wells. If a tool fails millions of dollars are lost each day the rig is not running. It's his job to know everything about a specific type of tool and if he doesn't know he asks someone else that can teach him about that tool. He specializes in knowing about liner hangers. Believe it or not I know quite a abit about them too..NOW. All in all my day is easy compared to Daniel. He is mentally and physically exhausted some days and I am only physically exhausted. The great thing is he comes home to 2 blond headed blue eyed boys and wife who love him very much. Around 3:30- 4:30 Stephen starts saying "Daddy coming in a minute Momma? And I say yes. My job isn't really hard in my opionion the hard part is managing my time to be the best wife and Mom to our family. I am going to conclude with a prayer because I know I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for my savior.

God, thank you for blessing my family in so many ways. Our precious boys are happy and healthy. Thank you for continously giving us wisdom as parents on how to raise our children. I thank you for the challenges that parenting brings because it draws us closer to you. Daniel and I have fully committed to making you top priority in our life so we can be an example to our boys. I thank you for blessing us with a small group bible study of people our age beginning in January. I thank you for Daniel's men's bible study over the last 8 weeks. We want to be in community with other Christians in our stage of life so we can continously learn your word and how to apply it in our life. I also thank you for my husband's job and his ability to learn such a new aspect of deep water drilling in the last year. Thank you that because of you I am able to stay home to raise our boys. As I spend the rest of the week with my family help Daniel and I to remember how to be thankful for all that you have freely given us today. Amen.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FRIENDS AND FAMILY!

Annual Holiday Tree Lighting ceremony

Jamie, the boys and I went to Market Street tonight for the Tree Lighting Ceremony. My friend Krista, her husband Nick and their son, Carson also came to this fun event. The Rhett Butler Band kicked off the festivities at 6 p.m. Soothing music filled the air with the spirit of the holiday. They even had fake snow (that Stephen didn't like.) While at the tree lighting event you can enjoy a fun carriage ride around Market Street’s Central Park. Stephen loves the horses but it wasn't a good night to do a carriage ride since Daddy couldn't make it. The cost isn't bad for both Daniel and I it's $30 but the boys are FREE. We also have mounted patrol here in the Woodlands.

More Pictures

Early Thanksgiving

We went to College Station this Saturday for the day. We had a nice time with Daniel's Mom's side of the family. All of our boys thoroughly enjoyed all the new toys. It was such a nice day we spent most of our time out on the back porch. As we get into the season of giving Thanks I am so thankful for family. We are so happy to spend time with Daniel's Mom. She has been in Houston since early October to help out for the birth of Cheri's baby girl, Skye. We will spend Thanksgiving in Pearland with Daniel's Mom and siblings on November 21st. Then on Thanksgiving day we will be in Gonzales and Seguin with my family eating fried turkey.


All of us for a family picture. Daniel's Dad had to go back to the Philippines a few weeks ago.

Baby Skye is so adorable. What a breath of fresh air it is to have a baby girl around with "girly" stuff. Look at this cute car seat cover my sister-in-law bought to put over the boy color underneath.

Daniel holding is sweet niece while having a nurf gun war with Cheri.

Titus is having so much fun.

Jonathan and I enjoying the swing. I couldn't get Stephen to stop playing long enough to take a picture.

Friends

This week my friends Krista and Melissa came over for a play date with all our boys. Krista has 4 month old Carson and Mel has Ethen who is almost 3 and Braeden is 20 months. Since my living room isn't HUGE I removed the coffee table opening more space and plenty of room for the boys to play. We emptied out the toy box and found toys we haven't seen in months. With all the fun I only took pictures of Carson and Jonathan. Here are our boys that don't know it but they are "best friends."

Day 2 Strider Bike

Day 1 Strider Bike

Rice Cereal

What do you think? Does he like it?

Strider Bike for Toddlers

I can hardly believe our little boy is turning 2 in a few weeks. We decided when he turned 2 we would get him some kind of bike, trike, hot wheel toy to ride on our driveway. Daniel found the Coolest little boy bike that he thinks Stephen will love. After some research we ordered a Strider toddler bike online for Stephen's birthday. We have found that many toddlers Stephen's age loved it and caught on to it in a decent amount of time. For those of you that have read our blog for a while you have seen a number of photos of our neighbor hood trails. It is for families and kids to ride bikes, run, and walk dogs. We look forward to some fun on the trails with Stephen on his new strider.

http://besttoddlerbike.com/

Row, Row, Row your boat

Fun Comparison Pics 4 months

Stephen March 08



Jonathan Nov 5


Jonathan Nov 5


Stephen March 08

Happy 32nd Birthday Daniel!!

We are going on a date tonight. Mom Shirley is coming to keep the boys so we can go spend sometime together out. It will be a nice evening.

We love you daddy!
Love,
Stephen and Jonathan

4 month appointment

Jonathan's appointment did not go great. After sitting in the room for 45 minutes waiting on the doctor both of my boys started to get ansy, especially Stephen. Keep in mind I am holding Jonathan the entire time (in a diaper) while reading books, giving a snack, drink and playing trains. At this point I was starting to get frustrated and so were the boys. JD started crying because he was hungry. I went ahead a made him a bottle 45 minutes early. When Jon started to cry Stephen decided he would start whining/crying to go home. Stephen only took a 40 minute nap today in the car prior to our 2pm doctor appointment. Stephen and I sang just about every nursery rhyme song I could THINK of at least twice. I took 3 little trains that link together magnetically for him to play with during the doctor time.Then right as the doctor comes in he did good until she left. He decided he wanted to leave too. The nurse took 15 more minutes until she came in to give Jonathan his shot. After the shot Jonathan of course cried and then Stephen started crying because he was sympathetic for his little brother. As I was checking out Stephen ran down the hall from me so I had to leave my crying infant to get my toddler running down the hall. This was the 2nd time he ran from me in the appointment today. It will be the last time he runs from me again. When we got to the car I had a good, firm talk with him in his face about running from me. I will spank the next time it happens. The only other time he has run from me in public was in Target (2 months ago). I have also decided I am going to purchase a portable DVD player that is long overdue TOMORROW.

Here are Jon's stats:

• 14.2 pounds
• 24 1/2 inches long
• almost 50 percentile in height/weight
• baby eczema on both arms; means using hydrocortisone cream, hypoallergenic detergent and cotton clothing
  

Overall he did good. He is a little fussy tonight and won't let me put him down but I know it will pass.

Jonathan is 4 months old

Jonathan and Daddy playing! Our nickname for Jonathan is pterodactyl. He makes the screaming noises with his mouth and it is so funny. He is not unhappy it's just his way of joining in our conversations I guess. Funny how little people learn.



My sweet baby Jonathan. He has his 4 month shots tomorrow but I am afraid he is going to be too sick to get his shots. He has had a lot of congestion lately and yesterday I started hearing it in his lungs. We'll see what the doctor says.

Callie turned one year old!

Callie and the boys playing. She started walking at 10 1/2 months.



This week my sweet little niece Callie turned one year old. My parents came to the Woodlands to celebrate her birthday. My brother is shaking the crumbs off his little girl after she devoured her cupcake.


Callie enjoyed her birthday cupcake.


yum, yum!



She has her very own set of bracelet's and 2 baby dolls.